Episode 16 It's a Sad, Sad World
by AMDonahue
Summary: Goren and Eames investigate a case of cyber-bullying turned homicide. Inspired by actual events.


**It's a Sad, Sad World**

**Law and Order: Criminal Intent**

**2007 – 2008 Season: Episode 16**

AnnMarie Donahue

_Tuesday 8:30 p.m._

"Oh my god, this is so bad!" Stacey leaned in closer. The monitor glowed against the girls' faces. "You're so good at Photoshop."

Cynthia, the girl running this little show sat in front of her iMac, doctoring a photo for the internet.

"Okay, guys. I've finished her homepage; we just need a bio and then sign her up for some 'activities'!" Cynthia laughed from behind her keyboard.

The one remaining figure in the room dropped her issue of 17 and walked over from the bed.

"Deanna, look at this." Stacey pointed at the monitor.

Deanna looked at the webpage; a doctored photo of their classmate was displayed in the upper left hand corner. Across the top read the page's title, "Naughty Slut for Hire". A list of fake conquests ran down the side with dialogue from both the men and the young girl pictured on the side.

"I don't know guys, isn't this a little much." Deanna rocked from one foot to another.

Cynthia turned to face Deanna, "So you think we should just roll over and let her say all that shit about us?"

Deanna looked at the floor, "No. But why can't we just trash her locker?"

"This is WAY beyond that." Cynthia stood up, knocking over her chair. "You want to back down, don't you?" Cynthia grabbed the hair on the back of Deanna's head and tugged hard. Deanna's whimper brought a malicious smile to Stacey's lips.

"No." Deanna said, unsure whether she meant she was in compliance with Cynthia's plans, or simply wanted her hair released.

"Good, then take a look at this." Cynthia righted her chair and sat down at the computer again.

A knock came at the door and Cynthia's mother, Victoria Smith, popped her head in. "You girls alright?"

"Yeah Mom," Cynthia said, in a sweet voice that sounded foreign but not fake. "I knocked over my chair."

"Oh," she turned to leave but paused, "do you girls want any cookies?"

"No thanks." Cynthia smiled and shook her head.

"Okay," her mother sighed. "Be good ladies."

As soon as the door shut Stacey laughed, "oooh, cookies."

Cynthia shot her a hard look shutting Stacey down immediately. "Don't talk about my mom."

"Sorry." Stacey muttered.

_Wednesday 7:20 a.m._

Jessica White walked through the halls of Our Sister of Mercy High School in Manhattan. She hugged her books against her chest and kept her eyes focused on the floor avoiding the gazes and laughter of the other students.

"Oh my god, there she is." A girl said, nudging the boy standing next to her. They watched her pass then laughed cruelly.

A boy in a letterman jacket jumped up to her side. He put his arm around her, which she tried to shrug off. She walked faster but he matched her pace.

"Hey, Jessie. My dad's pretty horny, how much would you cost?" Jessie began to run away from him. The other students had overheard him and found the entire ordeal hysterical. She ducked into a bathroom, as the door closed a flyer taped to it came free and fluttered to the ground. The start of class bell rang. Students' feet trampled the flyer "Naughty Slut for Hire."

_Wednesday 9:30 a.m._

"You need to get a control of this school!" Mr. White paced back and forth in the principal's office. Outside Jessica sat shrinking in a chair beside the door. She had an empty cup of coffee sitting next to her. The secretary flashed Jessie a sympathetic smile but looked away.

Inside the office Principal Victoria Smith sat coolly behind her desk. "Mr. White I can understand your frustration but this incident wasn't started in my school, it was brought in here."

"I want those girls responsible expelled." White shouted.

"Mr. White, we have no way of knowing who did this." She stood up and walked to the door, "but I can assure you that we are deeply concerned for Jessie. Perhaps she would benefit from counseling?"

White was floored. "You bitch." He picked up his jacket from the chair he hadn't sat in, and opened the door. "You'll hear from my attorney."

_Wednesday 5:45 p.m._

"Jessie, you don't have to go back there." Mr. White stood in the doorway of his daughter's bedroom. She was huddled on the floor with a stuffed teddy bear. "We'll put you in a new school, I'll find a way to pay for it."

"It's okay Dad. Everything's going to be okay." Jessie said, her voice was hollow but she at least seemed calm.

White wasn't sure what to do, "if your mom was here, she'd know what to do…" White stopped himself. He didn't want to open up that wound.

"I'm okay Dad." Jessie stood up, but wouldn't face him. "I want to rest now."

"Okay, honey." He turned to go.

"Dad." Jessie called out, her voice almost breaking.

"Yeah honey."

"I love you."

"I love you too honey." He turned, "sleep well."

_Thursday 8:00 a.m._

"Jessie, I have to leave for work." White turned the knob to his daughter's bedroom. He didn't hear her stir a cold panic grew in his stomach. He pushed the door open, half expecting what he found. Jessie was hanging from the lead water pipe running across her bedroom ceiling. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. He collapsed on the floor; everything in his life was gone.

**White Residence**

**Brooklyn, New York**

Detective Goren watched as the body was cut down from the steel pipe. He grimaced as the EMTs tugged the body free and packed her onto a gurney. Goren looked around the room; it was small and cramped but packed with obvious care.

"After her mother died we became a lot closer, but then all this trouble in high school started and she drifted away." White said from the doorway. He had watched the entire agonizing process of removing what was his daughter from the room.

Goren turned to look at the broken man. White looked as though he had shrunk from yesterday. His clothes hung from his body, his arms hung limp at his sides. Goren's thoughts drifted to Donnie, his only relative, and he wondered where he was.

"Mr. White, can I ask you some questions?" Eames ran her hand down White's arm. He shrugged and walked into the living room to talk.

Goren walked the small room. He could cross it in three strides. There was no note, that's what bothered him the most. No obvious sign of break in, no signs of a struggle, no signs of anyone else in the room. It was a suicide but he couldn't find any signs of warning.

Goren walked over to her desk. She had a newer laptop, next to it an older digital video camera. He tapped on the laptop, the screen came up. He would have a CSU member take that to the lab. Picking up the camera he hit the eject button, nothing in the camera.

Goren moved to the window. He separated the sash and saw a footprint on the ledge. Goren smiled. There was a reason Major Case had been brought in to investigate this suicide, because it was no such thing.

Goren wandered out to the living room to catch Eames ending the interview. White had become too distraught to continue. Eames motioned for Goren to exit the apartment and met him on the porch.

"Bet you'd like to know why we're here." Eames said, tucking her notepad into her jacket pocket.

"It's possibly not a suicide?" Goren said. He looked down at Eames who did not looked surprised.

"It's almost definitely not." She walked around to the driver's side of the car and got in. Goren sat in the passenger seat, waiting for her to continue. "Do you remember the Lazare kidnapping about five years ago?"

Goren thought for a moment, "Yeah, an accountant was testifying against the Lazare crime family, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The mother died." Goren adjusted his seat belt as Eames turned over the engine.

"That's the accountant." Eames sighed. She dropped the SUV into drive and pulled out onto the street.

"You're kidding." Goren said in despair. "Queen's the best the Witness Protection Agency can do for this guy?"

"Evidently they were hoping New York was big enough to hide in." Eames let out a growl.

"That girl was kidnapped when she was only ten." Goren said pensively. The chewed on the side of this thumb a while, then began again. "She watched her mother get beaten, raped and tortured for four days."

Eames interrupted him, "Bobby, she was raped as well. Then she was stuffed in a storage bin, bound, gagged and thrown into a river. It's a miracle she managed to get out." Eames said it all fast. She knew Bobby hated sex crimes. He had turned down an offer to work with SVU when Benson went undercover. Bobby had once gone as far as to compare notes with Huang about profiling. After the interview Eames overheard two other cops joking about Bobby vomiting in the bathroom. She never pushed it after that.

Goren sat in the passenger's seat looking a little grim. Eames moved the conversation forward before he had time to ruminate too long.

"Did you find anything in the room?" Eames prodded.

"Yes." Goren cleared his throat and sat up in his seat. "Yes. There was a sneaker print on the window sill. Pointing out towards the alley."

"Any ideas?" Eames stole a glance.

"No, the CSU have to take it. I couldn't identify it." He shifted in his seat and chewed on the inside of his cheek a little.

**One Police Plaza**

**Manhattan, NY**

"Do we think this is mob related?" Ross stood in front of the cork board.

"There was nothing left behind to indicate that." Eames started; she looked at Goren to back her up.

Carver sat on the edge of the table looking at the both of them. His fingers were drumming on the table in frustration.

"Detectives, may I remind you of the value you are to give this investigation?"

Goren's head snapped back and he pursed his lips. "Counselor, if this was a mob hit they would have left us some kind of calling card." Goren stepped back and looked at the cork board.

Carver stood, he never handled Goren well, "Detective, I'm asking you to keep a sharp eye on every detail. This case was quashed by the LA District Attorney for reasons unknown and frankly, I don't want his mistakes washing up in my district." Carver shrugged his shoulders at the two detectives.

"What do we have to discredit a suicide?" Ross interjected.

"Not a lot." Eames said in her defeated tone. "There's no note, but the lab still has her computer. Goren found a print on her window ledge."

Carver almost jumped up. "And you didn't consider this evidence?"

"Of course I did. CSU is running it now." Goren was becoming very frustrated with Carver. Carver was there too early in the investigation. It was his chance to fix the 'LA problem' and replace Jack McCoy as DA.

"Counselor, my detectives don't slack off." Ross came to their defense, which had grown even rarer in the past weeks. "You called us in. Now you have to let us do our jobs."

Carver walked to the door and looked back at Goren, "Detective, I've never been comfortable with your tactics in the past, but you do seem to be able to hunt down more evidence than anyone. Please, if this girl was murdered, I want to punish who did it." He left the room, leaving Ross to face his detectives.

"He's just mad McCoy made DA." Ross said, hoping everyone would just drop it and move on. "The sneaker print?"

Goren nodded, "CSU still has it, and we're going down there after this."

"Okay, find out about that and the computer. Headquarters

**Abington, MA**

"Madeline, you've got to see this site." Mark Walsh walked into his boss' office. Madeline was sitting behind her computer playing Dementia Four: Killer Illusions. She sat back and gave a small yell when he closed out her game to bring up their site.

"What the hell, Mark!"

"Mads, this is serious. I think we might be in some big trouble."

Madeline sat forward and looked at the website Mark had pulled up. He stepped out of the way to reveal the site. Across the top read the banner 'Naughty Slut for Hire.'

"Shit." Madeline scrolled down, reading the biography given. "Is this girl 18?"

Mark rolled his eyes, "honey does she look 18?" He paused, "There have been about 700 hits to this site today."

Madeline grimaced. She pulled the phone up from the cradle, "Doug, yeah, I need you to pull a site." She typed his address into her outlook, "I'm sending you the IPP now." She paused, waiting for him to get the message. "Yeah, Doug, this has to come down immediately."

**Crime Scene Unit**

**One Police Plaza**

**Manhattan, NY**

Stephanie Carter was typing away on the computer taken from Jessica's house when Goren and Eames entered. She waved them over. "I've got into the computer you sent down."

Eames walked over to the desk, but Goren lagged behind a pace. Stephanie started, "Jessica was an avid pod caster. She had a site on She created an audio blog, made radio shows. She even tried her hand at some music. The feedback she got was really supportive on this pod site. Until someone named 'Sinbaby' got on and started flaming her." She scrolled down to reveal the comments made.

"You suck! Next time you sit down at a keyboard I'm gonna cut your fingers off!" Eames read aloud, she cast a concerned glance at Carter. "Why did she leave these up?"

"They're not, we can see them because they were saved to the account its automatic with this site. This same person would create almost 17 personalities to flame her."

"Flame her? What does that mean?" Goren leaned in to take a closer look.

"Cyber bullying. It's when someone just jumps on a site and starts swearing or being mean." Carter explained.

Eames' phone rang at her side; she walked off to answer it.

Goren stood up straight and pointed at the computer screen, "What about the print I sent down?"

"That is really interesting."

Goren raised an eyebrow, "how so."

Stephanie took a deep breath, "well, initially it's boring. Just a standard K Swiss shoe but the tread and wear on it is unusual. She held up the photograph, "the shoe is worn out on the inside more, and the pressure is placed on the front of the foot, not the heel."

"Corrected clubfoot?" Goren guessed.

"Yes, but no." She held the photograph up to the light and ran her finger along the sides of the sneaker's print. "The entire print is even."

Eames rejoined the conversation and filled in the gap, "So whoever left that print did it in someone else's shoes. That was the ME, she wants us down there."

**Smith Residence**

**Manhattan, NY**

"Clear it all out, as much as you can." Cynthia commanded. She was standing over Stacey quickly deleted everything.

"We are so screwed." Stacey whined from her seat.

"Shut up and just erase it." Cynthia paced the floor of her room. Deanna was again on the bed reading a magazine. Her lack of tension sent Cynthia over the edge, she knocked the magazine out of Deanna's hands.

"Bitch!" Deanna scowled and picked up the magazine again.

"Why the hell are you so damned calm?" Cynthia asked.

"Because while you two were busy making that stupid site, I was sitting here, reading this magazine." She settled back on the bed and picked up one of Cynthia's stuffed rabbits. "I have nothing to worry about."

Cynthia ripped the bunny out of her hands and walked back to the computer.

**Office of the Medical Examiner**

**One Police Plaza**

**Manhattan, NY**

Rogers stood in front of the slab. Her arms were folded across her chest. Goren caught a very annoyed look flash across her face when he walked in.

"Welcome back detective." Rogers said. Goren could hear her grinding her teeth from across the room.

"You wanted to see us?" Eames stepped between the two.

"Yes, and I'm certain you can guess why." Rogers pulled the blanket back from the body. She lowered it only so far as the collar bone.

The rope marks dug into her skin, as though the rope had cut into her neck. "This was no suicide."

"Okay, so what happened?" Eames asked.

Rogers pulled out her trusty folder and handed it over to Eames. "The tox screen indicates a mild dose of opium in the system. When I couldn't find any needle marks I scraped her stomach lining and found it there."

"She ingested opium?" Eames asked.

"It's more common than you think." Rogers answered. "After that I think this girl was strung up, because her neck didn't snap. She died of asphyxiation."

Goren grimaced at the thought.

Rogers appreciated the silence and continued, "someone tied her up and pulled her down to stop the breathing." She moved to the opposite end of the table and pulled up the sheet to display the feet. "There are bruises on the feet to indicate someone grabbing and pulling them."

Goren put his hands up to the feet, comparing his hands with the marks left behind.

"From what I can tell, it took several tries, the attacker was not strong."

"That rules out Mr. White." Eames sighed, she handed the report back to Rogers. "And the mob connection. Carver will be upset."

"Eames put your hands up here," she held her hands out against the marks. They matched.

"We solved the crime, I did it." Eames said in a wry voice and looked up at Goren.

**Monday**

**Our Sister of Mercy High School**

**Manhattan, NY**

Principal Victoria Smith spoke into the microphone on stage. The students of 'Mercy' were gathered somberly in the auditorium.

"A member of our family is gone." She said in an administrative tone, "we are here to offer comfort and support for you. Please, talk to some one, talk to a friend, a teacher, a counselor. Don't suffer as Jessica did. The student peers are here to help you and will hold an open house workshop in the gymnasium throughout the school day."

She turned and motioned for the ten students standing to the side. Her daughter, Cynthia Smith was the head of the pack.

**One Police Plaza**

**Manhattan, NY**

"I don't need to tell you how disappointed Carver is that this isn't connected to LA." Ross said then ushered his two detectives into his office. Waiting inside were two guests looking terribly guilty.

"Detectives this Madeline Sinct and Mark Summest, they are the co-founders of Ross moved in behind his desk. Goren and Eames walked to the window and looked down at the pair.

"Thank you for seeing us detectives." Madeline started in a shaky voice. "My partner and I wanted to bring this to your attention the minute we heard the news."

"I'm just co-founder, Madeline runs YouSpace." Mark sat forward and gulped loudly after that.

"We saw the news this weekend and are concerned. The young lady had a page built on our site in her name." Madeline began to explain, hoping the big detective would stop staring at her. "The minute it came to my attention it was taken down immediately."

Ross turned to Goren and Eames to fill in the blanks, "YouSpace allows people to build pages off of their site."

"It's a community for people to share interests about movies, books, music. It's always been meant to be a positive thing." Madeline explained, "But some people always have to be cruel and we get sites like this." She pulled a laptop out of her bag. "The page has been entirely erased from our site, no one can access it. However we saved everything to this laptop, which you're free to have."

Eames took the laptop and opened it on the captain's desk. She and Ross looked at the pages saved to the desktop.

"This was on your site?" Ross pointed at the monitor, "this girl is fourteen years old."

Madeline shifted in her seat, "We encourage only adults to use our website. Our guests know that anything sexually explicit will be taken down immediately and the account terminated."

"The minute I found this site I brought it to Madeline's attention and she called Doug, our head administrator to take it down." Mark said. "We did everything right."

"Well, not everything. A little girl is dead." Goren said starring hard at the man.

Ross turned back the guests, "thank you for coming in and bringing this to our attention." He rose and opened the door for them.

"We only want to help fix this." Madeline said, shooting Goren a hateful glare.

Ross closed the door after them and walked back to his desk.

"Captain, there's a lot of personal information on this site." Eames stood up straight; she had been hunched over the laptop since first seeing the pages in question.

Goren looked over her shoulder and grimaced. "Nothing made me hotter than doing the guy who did my mom; it was like being with Dad."

"What is this?" Eames backed away, as if the computer carried some communicable disease.

"According to the phone conversation I had with Ms. Sinct this site was built at one computer but launched at a cybercafé in the city. I've got to uniforms bring the tapes back now." Ross leaned into read some of the information. "Who ever did this is one sick person."

"Well, who ever did this has access to privileged information." Goren ground his back teeth. "This girl was in the witness protection program, she wouldn't talk about this to just anyone. Yet our website has personal information all over it."

"Including her address, we're going to have to move White out of that apartment." Eames walked to the door, "I'm going to alert witness protection. Maybe this time they can live up to their name."

Goren started to follow Eames out but paused, he close the door in front of him and faced the captain. "Captain…" Goren paused and grumbled he wasn't sure how to proceed.

"It doesn't need to be said." Ross sat down and tapped on his keyboard to wake up his computer.

Goren wasn't happy with this. He didn't like being indebt to this man; if it were Deakins he would feel completely comfortable. But Ross was a different fish; he didn't know where he stood.

"No, it does." Goren stood before his desk. Ross looked up at him. Goren had not improved, the bags were still under his eyes, and he was lumbering under a weight that had nothing to do with his size. He still seemed oppressed by something, beaten down by it. "Captain, I wanted to thank you for going to bat for me."

Ross exhaled loudly and rubbed the back of his head with both hands. "I understand that you're not a 'procedure guy' but you don't get that I am." Ross stopped and took a long look at Goren. "You still aren't fit, detective."

Goren went to interrupt, but Ross waved him off, "I know. When I got divorced I spent too much time…"

Eames opened the door, "Bobby, Captain, White's been shot."

**White Residence**

**Brooklyn, NY**

Goren walked in-between the sets of police officers moving about. There was one younger looking CSU member snapping off pictures by the dozen. Goren tapped him lightly on the shoulder to move him out of the way. Goren knelt down.

White was sprawled out on his living room floor. His plaid shirt was open, and the white t-shirt underneath was drenched in dark red blood. His eyes were wide open, and his mouth gaping.

"There's no sign of a break in." Eames said. She was standing at his side.

Goren stood up and tried to image away the police from his view. "He knew his attacker, but didn't run from him." Goren pointed to the room, "nothing's knocked over." Goren moved in-between the other officers to stand at the door.

Eames smiled, she always loved watching Goren re-enact the murder scene.

"He answered the door, recognized the murderer and let him in." Goren moved over towards Eames, he looked at the body, "he walked back this way, possibly to turn off the TV." He pointed at the clicker on the couch. "Turned back to face the attacker, who pulled out a gun and shot him."

"Detectives?" Stephanie Carter waved to Goren and Eames.

"They let you out I see?" Eames chided.

Stephanie smiled back at her. "Yeah, lucky me." She dug her finger into the dry wall of the apartment. "The shooter fired twice, the first one hit here." She smiled as she produced the bullet from the wall. She held it up for Goren and Eames to take a look.

".45?" Goren took Stephanie's wrist and turned it to better the read the base of the bullet. He nodded to himself.

Eames noticed that Stephanie's cheeks were burning. "I'll call this into Carver; see what he wants to do." Eames thought up a lie quickly.

"Why?" Goren asked, but Eames only waved an answer to him. He stood up straight and looked down at Stephanie. He smiled awkwardly, if a little pained.

"That museum on Friday night was… interesting." Stephanie tried to initiate a conversation. She would never date on the job again.

Goren rubbed the back of his neck and hummed in agreement.

Eames walked back over, as slowly as possible.

"We need to head back; the tapes from the Cyber Café are in." Eames tapped him on the shoulder.

The exited the house, leaving the swarms of uniforms and CSU still surveying the crime scene. Eames opened the driver's door to the SUV and looked at Goren, who was already in the passenger seat.

"She seems nice."

Goren licked his lips and raised his eyebrows, all the time looking straight ahead. He waited a moment for Eames to get in, and then turned to her, "we going?"

**One Police Plaza**

**Manhattan, NY**

"According to the information provided by YouSpace these pages went up at 11:28 Tuesday night. These are the only teens in the café at that time."

Goren and Eames watched the low quality black and white video from the CyberCityCafe. Three young girls wearing hoodies over their heads and large sunglasses were huddled at one computer. One girl sat at the keyboard while another sat closely to her side. The third remained standing.

Goren grumbled, "We know it's these three."

The tech nodded at him. "Without a doubt, I have the records from the computer use CyberCityCafe. This girl logs on five minutes prior, the computer records show that she visited YouSpace and spent about 15 minutes there. Plenty of time to upload these pages and get out."

"Yeah, and get a latte too," Eames tapped the screen.

Goren smiled. Eames wound the tape back to the entrance of the three girls, the two sat down immediately the third bought a latte and paid for it with her ATM card.

Deanna Lawrence sat behind the interrogation table. Her lawyer sat next to her. Goren and Eames waited outside for Carver to arrive. Through the two-way mirror they watched the girl chew her thumbnail.

Carver arrived, "I understand she wants to talk."

Deanna sat up straight when Carver walked in. Her lawyer stood up, "Deanna this is Mr. Carver, don't say thing until I ask you a question." He redirected his attention to Carver. "My client is willing to cooperate; she was witness to, but not a participant in these unfortunate events."

"Mr. Madeson, I'm interested in prosecuting the girls who caused this crime, if your client can help and is willing to testify in court, then I'm willing to turn a blind eye to any involvement, no matter how little." Carver sat down, opposite Deanna.

Madeson nodded and sat down. He turned to Deanna, "Tell Mr. Carver, what you told me."

"It was Cynthia's idea, she hated Jessica. I don't know why. None of us like her, but none of us waste that much time chasing her around either. Cynthia got all of Jessica's personal information, stuff from her past and built that website. She and Stacey planned the entire thing. They even printed out the homepage and hung it up around school."

"How did she get information on Cynthia?"

"Her mom, Principal Smith." Deanna said. She looked back at her lawyer who prodded her to continue. "Principal Smith got Jessica's records from the school shrink. She brought them home and let Cynthia read them."

"The principal of your school allowed her daughter to read sealed records?" Carver was incredulous.

"Yeah, Cynthia gets away with everything at that school. She actually attacked a teacher, gave her a black eye, you know what happened? The teacher got fired." Deanna sat back in her chair, very pleased with herself.

Carver turned around to face the mirror. On the other side stood Goren and Eames. Goren had his hand over his mouth.

"I think I know where we're going." Eames said.

**Smith Residence**

**Manhattan, NY**

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" Cynthia stamped into the room, dragging her chucky shoes across the polished wood floor.

Goren smirked at her and let Eames spark off a snarky comment.

"Executing a search warrant." She turned to a uniformed police officer. "Don't forget to get her computer."

"What?" She started to follow the uniform that disappeared into the hallway, "you can't just come in here and take my stuff."

"This piece of paper says we can." Eames handed her the warrant moved across the room.

"I'm calling my mom." She pulled out a little jewel encrusted cell phone, but stopped dead when she caught Goren.

"Oh, a gun box, without a gun."

Eames smiled and lolled her head to a side, she addressed Cynthia. "We are always so interested in finding a gun's hiding place empty."

Cynthia paused, her mouth moved a little looking for the smart thing to say. For the first time in her life, she didn't have a smart comment. "I don't know anything about that."

Eames moved the false bottom of the box, to reveal a row of .45's. "What's my favorite caliber?"

Goren looked over her shoulder, "Ms. Smith, where were you this morning?"

"School." She shook her head at him.

"Someone at the school can verify that?" Goren put his phone to his ear.

Cynthia's smirk dropped from her face. She began to cringe but wouldn't budge. Eames stepped into her.

"As you know, attendance records aren't very reliable, so we're going to need to talk to your teachers and verify that you were there." Eames stared her down, "will they back you up?"

Cynthia exhaled, she snapped her phone shut. "Fine, no. I wasn't there. School's too heavy these days, so I took a day off."

"You're going to want to tell me where you were, and hope it filled with people who can recognize you."

Goren was walking back to the conversation, he was still talking on the phone. "Thank you counselor, we'll meet you there." Goren pulled at Cynthia's arm. A warrant for your arrest has been faxed to your mother, you're coming with us."

"What?" Cynthia started to jump to get away from him. "What the hell, get your hands off me." Eames took over and handcuffed her, she read the whining teen her Miranda Rights.

**One Police Plaza**

**Manhattan, NY**

"Where's your mother's gun, Cynthia?" Eames leaned forward at the table. They were all situated in the all-too-familiar interrogation room.

"I don't know, when's my mom coming?" Cynthia said. She kept her head low, propped up by one hand.

"We called her at work, but she took the day off there too." Eames drummed her fingers on the table. "Does she do that a lot, just blow you off?"

Cynthia looked up, her head still attached to her hand, "no. My mother and I are very close, she's a good mom."

"Doesn't look that way to me." Goren spoke out from the corner of the room. He was standing out of Cynthia's eye line, she would have to move to see him. "Seems to me like she's dropped you here. Why would she do that?"

"Shut up!" Cynthia sat up, she slammed her hand on the table. "My mom's great. She called me this morning, before I got to school. She told me you guys were going to frame this whole thing on the school and her."

"Okay, let's start with this." Eames produced a photograph of the sneaker print left behind on Jessica White's bedroom windowsill. "This is a print from Jessica's windowsill, it perfectly matches the sneakers we found in your closet."

"So, lots of people have those sneakers."

"No, see, not everyone has a corrected club foot and not everyone puts pressure on the inside upper pad of their foot, like you do and like the person who made this print."

Cynthia looked at the picture and licked her lips. She swallowed hard and shifted her glance from Eames to the door.

"You visited Jessica that night, you drugged her and you hung her. You set it up to look like a suicide to cover up your other little trick." Eames picked up the laptop from and opened it on the table. She called up the pictures and spun it around to show Cynthia. Cynthia just glared at her handiwork come back to haunt her.

"What is that?" Cynthia asked, she was trying to sound annoyed but came off as scared.

Goren moved over to the table and slapped down on it, hard enough to make not only the laptop jump but the sardonic teen as well. "You know full well what these are." He pointed at the screen and got in Cynthia's face. "You targeted this girl because you thought it would be fun and easy. You found out her background and instead of feeling pity and sympathy, like a normal human, you only felt malice and hate. WHY?!?!" Goren was yelling in her face.

Cynthia started crying. "I don't know why. I don't know why." Cynthia became hysterical, she was crying and hollering together, "My mom told me she deserved it. I didn't care, but then she brought home all the stories she had told the shrink. All that stuff about being raped and watching her mother die. I don't know!"

Goren backed away from her. "This little girl survived all that, she was raped, she watched her mother get raped and murdered. She was stuffed in a trunk and almost drowned." He sat down next to her, "you laid it all bear on the internet, for everyone to see and laugh at.

Cynthia was sobbing but kept quiet, the fight had been drained out of this girl and she finally knew what shame felt like. She calmed herself long enough to start talking again. "Mom always wanted me to be strong." She snuffled back some tears. "She said if I was weak I wouldn't get anywhere."

Goren sat down and addressed her in a softer tone, "she pressured you."

"Pressured?" Cynthia joked through gulps of air. "Can I show you something? Not with him, though?" She pleaded with Eames.

Goren rose and left the room, he walked into the hallway but would not go into the viewing room. Inside the interrogation room Eames watched as Cynthia stood up. She shuddered a little then started to unbutton her shirt. She turned around, and with her back to Eames lowered the shirt down her back.

Eames gasped. All along her back were a series of scars, they stretched all across her back, and disappeared into the top of her jeans, but Eames suspected they traveled further. She rose to get a closer look at the girl, some of the scars were fresher than the others. Eames stood at the girl's side, she could see clearly that these cuts covered the top half of her arms as well.

"Your mother did this?" Eames asked.

"It started when my dad left us. Mom gained a lot of weight and I guess I did too. Then she lost it, but I didn't. I was eight and mom started cutting me. She said it would help with hunger." Cynthia looked at Eames' face, full of horror, "She was right, I'm a size 2."

In the squad room Eames was arguing for Cynthia.

"Carver, we can't just close the book on this girl. She's suffered years of abuse at the hands of her mother." Carver was standing by their desks.

"I appreciate your zeal, but there is strong evidence to prosecute Miss Smith for murder. She created a website to kill Jessica then went back for her father."

"Where's the motive in that?" Goren asked from his chair.

"Detective, I suggest you read less pulp fiction. Motives have almost disappeared." Carver began to leave.

"Counselor, please. Her mother is out there, somewhere. I believe she did it. If you saw this girl's back, saw what her mother is capable of." Eames tried to convince him.

"Eames, I'm certain you are very persuaded, but we have no proof that this woman did this to her child. I'm bringing up charges against Cynthia Smith for the deaths of Jessica White and Michael White." Carver turned as he left, "I expect the full cooperation of my police force."

Once Carver was gone Eames turned to Ross, "Captain, you know this doesn't fit. There's no way this girl pulled it off. Her Mom disappeared, that has to bring up enough doubt to justify investigating her."

Ross shrugged, "Eames, I'm sorry. Carver's got the person he wants."

"Even if it's the wrong one?" Goren said. His phone rang and he answered it, drifting away from the conversation.

"Can't win them all." Ross walked away.

Eames sat down across from Goren. She was fuming. "That's it. We let the wrong person go to jail while the right person is free?"

Goren shook his head. "Who says? Principal Smith is back at work."

Sister of Mercy High School

Manhattan, NY

"She's locked herself in her office." The secretary said as Eames and Goren walked in.

A few teachers were gathered in the office waiting area, looking as though they were there more for the spectacle than to offer support.

"Everybody needs to return to their classrooms please." Eames said. The few teachers left. Beyond the door Eames could hear Victoria sobbing.

Eames went up to the door and knocked softly. "Principal Smith, my name is Alex Eames, can I come in?"

"No. Please leave me alone." Eames could hear that she wasn't moving around in the office.

"Victoria, I can't do that. You need to come out and talk with us." Eames listened closely. Victoria wasn't moving, but Eames' sharp ears caught the very familiar sound of a click. Thinking fast she pulled Goren's sleeve and dragged both their bodies down, just missing the bullet that shattered the clouded glass of the door.

The secretary shrieked and cowered under her desk. Eames and Goren sat on either side of the door. No more shots followed, but that didn't mean anyone was safe.

"Victoria. We've got your daughter." Eames yelled into the office. "We know it isn't her. She too much of a wimp to pull this off." Goren looked over at Eames she nodded to him, knowing what she was doing.

Slowly Victoria's voice crept out of the room. "She was always too weak, too slow."

"I saw how you tried to train her. She showed me her back." Eames called out.

Victoria inhaled hard and sobbed, "it was to make her stronger. She let that girl make fun of her on that pathetic radio show. How was she going to make it in life? If one person disrespects you everyone will follow." Victoria was wobbling on her feet.

Eames stood up on the side of the door and chanced a peak inside. She saw Victoria walking away from her desk.

"I gave her all the dirt she would need to shut that girl down for good. But then the little idiot just wouldn't die. She just wouldn't. So I went over, there. I drugged her here at school and just waited until she passed out. Then her father got wise, wanted to sue the school." Victoria's voice broke. She started sobbing in disoriented gasps.

"Victoria, put the gun down and walk out here now." Eames commanded.

Inside the room, Victoria looked at the mirror she kept on the wall. She straightened a few strands of hair, brought the gun to her temple and said, "To hell with it."

The end.

Next week: Logan and Falacci in LOCI: Two for the Road.

When an elderly Canadian couple is found butchered in their newly purchased camper detectives Logan and Falacci hunt down the killer only find an international drug smuggling ring that involves police officers from the NYPD.


End file.
